POSSESSION OF PROPERTY, in point of law, is the most intimate relation that can subsist between the owner and his property. Strictly speaking, the idea of property consists merely of a certain relation between a human being and a portion of external nature, whereby he appropriates to himself all the ordinary uses of which such external nature is capable. If it is land, he reaps the fruits, and excludes all other persons from interfering with his operations; if it is a chattel, he keeps it under his exclusive control. Possession, therefore, ismothing hut the legal result of the relation of property. Pos session. though originally constituting the whole substance of property, has, as civiliza tion advanced, become a separable part of it; and while the radical right is now the ownership, the possession is viewed as an incident of such ownership. It is now not only separable but salable, and constitutes the foundation of the contract between land lord and tenant, whereby the owner, by way of a lease, sells for a limited period the exclusive use, otherwise called the possession. So long, therefore, as an owner exists,
he has, as a necessary consequence, the right, more or less immediately and directly, to the possession of property. When all record of ownership is lost, then the law permits a resort to first principles, and allows any person who has been in possession for a lim ited time to retain it, and so ultimately acquire the ownership. If the possession is sud denly or wrongfully interfered with, the usual remedy, in England. to recover possession of real property, such as land or houses, is an action of ejectment; if the property is a chattel, it is an action of trover or detinue. But lime possession may be recovered also by other modes. See also OWNERSHIP and LOST PROPERTY.